Category Archives: Gracelines

To Bethlehem

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December 21

A Christmas Journey of Prayer

Then the word came with the iron

Of empire forged in it:…

Of enrollment. Lands and provinces,

They’d said, and men and citizens and slaves.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem…to be enrolled with Mary, his espoused wife, who was with child.

And then,

A door was closed behind them, and the sound

Was loud in isolated emphasis

Against the stillness and the dawn’s cold fog…

A woolen shawl

And wrappings clutched together for the cold

Enveloped her…

A final glance had shut away this house

That had been hers, the echo of her movement

Fades to silence…

It’s true enough, that they had often stopped,

And she had gone, as one among the rest

Of women then to find relief against

The road’s fatigues, and when the fires were made,

She worked among them in the fading day.

Did they not know? Could they not feel the nearness?

…The Source? Already, some unheld reflection

Of the questing light that was to rest

Forever in His eyes, looked out from hers

As answering, she said: “To Bethlehem.”

(Excerpted from A Woman Wrapped in Silence By John W. Lynch)

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Special relation with God

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December 19

“…Mary acquired a very special relation with God. The blood of Jesus, the heart of Jesus and the body of Jesus are formed by the blood of Mary. By adoring the blood, the sacred wounds and the heart of Jesus, we adore something proceeding from Mary which was assumed by the Son of God.”

-Blessed James Alberione

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Sing for Him

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December 17

He might be born, and see the stars through eyes

That were her eyes in Him! And might she trace

Her features in the molding of His brow?

Hear her voice in His, and know the need

He had of her, and uttered in a cry?

And she…and…she might sing for Him at dusk!

Might sing, but no, she could not dare this dream…

But yet, it was a mother’s need to sing…

And then a song the world has never heard,

Rising in the faintest strains of distance

Loveliness had moved along the silver

Shining of her dreams, like light returned

Within a purer light, until it came

To her unfrightened. Caroling of angels’

Praise, and love that lifts to lullaby

Became as one, and blended for a fragile

Music that was hers and only hers…

My soul doth magnify the Lord:…Because he that is

mighty has done great things to me: and holy is his name.

(Excerpts from A Woman Wrapped in Silent by John W. Lynch, reprinted by permission of Paulist Press.)

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